'Thanks so much,' she replied. 'I can see her coming back now, so you
can combine the two. That will do nicely.'
It would, in fact, fit in very nicely with her plans; for in
consequence of that taking to task she _had_ been making plans, as
women of her sort do when they feel an interest in a man which they
cannot classify. And Grace Arbuthnot could not classify hers for Jack
Raymond; though she went so far as to acknowledge that she could not,
even now, treat him as she treated all other men with the exception of
her husband.
He made her feel moody and restless. This was intolerable, even though
the cause was, clearly, nothing more than a regret at his wasted life.
It could, indeed, be nothing else. Had she not at the very beginning
sought him out solely in the hope of rousing him to better things? He
had repulsed her by saying that hers was not the hand to win his back
to the plough; and she had resented this at first--had refused to
believe that the past could interfere with the present. But she had
been reasoning the matter out with herself during the last few days.
There had been many links and also many _lacunæ_ in the chain of that
reasoning; yet she had been quite satisfied with the result of it,
namely--a conviction that Lesley Drummond would be the very person to
compass regeneration! For women like Grace Arbuthnot are never more
inconsequent than they are in regard to Love with a big L; since in one
breath they call it Heaven-sent, and the next set springes to catch it
as if it were a woodcock or a hedge-sparrow!
Having arrived at this conviction with a curious mixture of shrewdness
and sentiment, Grace had gone on to be practical. She herself was
debarred by her position from any more becoming dress than the latest
Paris fashion, but that was no reason why Lesley should not have the
advantage of clever wits and clever fingers. For the girl herself was
of that large modern type which, without in the least despising dress,
being, in fact, curiously sensitive to its charm, are personally quite
helpless concerning it.
The result of this being, that as Lesley approached, Jack Raymond
stared at the transformation, took in its details, and finally gave in
to the perfection of the dress by saying, with a laugh-=
'God prosper thee, my Lady Greensleeves!'
'My Lady Greensleeves!' echoed Lesley. 'Yes, of course it is! How
stupid of me, Lady Arbuthnot, not to have guessed before. Oh! I'm
sorry; I promised not to tell who made my dress, didn't I?'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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